By Kalvin Yu, MD, FIDSA, Vice President of U.S. Medical Affairs and Vikas Gupta, Pharm.D., Director of Medical Affairs

BD Infectious Disease Insights launched weekly snapshots of viral infections across the U.S. one month ago. This fourth update provides data over the Thanksgiving holiday. Of note, there has been an uptick in hospital discharges for flu – and for the first time to date the data are approaching those of COVID-19 hospital discharges. COVID-19 rates remain steady, and RSV showed a slight downtick, but it is still too early to tell if hospitalizations have begun to level off. 

Here is what our data show through November 26:

FLU

This week, we saw hospital discharge rates for flu at 2.5 /100 discharges – a notable uptick since our last snapshot (~1.45/100 discharges). As mentioned above, the rate this week is steadily approaching that of COVID hospital discharges (3.0/100 discharges). These findings closely align with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) findings, which are reporting 18.2 percent positive specimens for influenza this week[1] – compared to 15.2 percent last week.

COVID-19                                          

We are seeing similar rates of COVID-19 hospital discharges – with no significant changes week over week. Discharge rates continue to remain below the rates in the same week in November 2021. We will continue to monitor COVID-19 discharge rates as a mid-December increase was noted last year.

RSV

There was a slight decrease in RSV activity this week – with the hospital discharge rate at 1.02/100 (previously 1.07/100).  Continued surveillance is needed to understand the post-holiday trajectory of RSV discharge rates.

About BD Infectious Disease Insights
Emerging infectious diseases have been increasing in frequency during the past few decades. None have tested the U.S. health care system’s capacity or resiliency like COVID-19 – forever changing the way that we think about future outbreaks and how we manage the related unintended consequences. The BD Infectious Disease Insights series investigates today’s most prominent infectious disease trends. The series leverages the depth and breadth of our data to serve as an ongoing bellwether on the state of infectious diseases in the U.S., backed by clinical insights on how to increase overall awareness and preparedness.